The Swordmaster (ソードマスター, Swordmaster) is the promotion of the Myrmidon. These lightly armored foot soldiers are capable and have an increased chance to deal critical attacks. A common misconception is that swordmasters have high strength; their strength is generally average or below average, but is made up for by their increased chances of dealing a critical hit (the one exception being Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, where they had one of the highest strength caps in the game). The Swordmaster has a high amount of speed when compared to many of the other classes, giving them high accuracy and evasion, making them a very deadly class. The Swordmaster class was officially introduced in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (where Ayra and her daughter Larcei defined the class, including its signature skill, Astra), while the Myrmidon class first appeared in Fire Emblem Gaiden and was given that name in Fire Emblem: Binding Blade. The Blade LordLyndis from Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken and the Great LordEirika from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones are considered to be a variations of Swordmasters, having the same stat caps. The average HP stat of Swordmasters varies greatly regardless of gender, it can be high or low.

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While the defense rating has risen since the promotion from Myrmidon, the Swordmaster's defense is still considered lighter than normal classes. With this, the same weaknesses still apply to the class, but the strengths still do as well. With high speed and generally average strength, Swordmasters deliver both strong and accurate attacks, and swift dodgers, making their counterattacks equally as formidable. Swordmasters are the speediest class when upgraded, so are effective at facing bosses thanks to their high chance to dodge.

The two skills Swordmasters can learn in Awakening are Astra and Swordfaire. When Astra is activated (The trigger percentage equals Skill divided by 2), the user unleashes five consecutive strikes at half damage. Dealing a maximum of 2.5 times the normal damage, it is an awesome attacking skill great for ensuring a blow or two on evasive enemies. In addition, if the user gets a crit on every strike, the grand total is 7.5 times the original punishment, which is way more than enough to bring down any enemy and almost every boss. Swordfaire boosts the user's Strength by 5 if he/she is wielding a sword (Magic is upped by 5 if the user has a Levin Sword). Swordmasters tend to have average or below average Strength and horrific Magic growths, so this skill is good for rectifying that problem. In all, these are excellent skills and are totally worth snagging in your quest to build the ultimate units.

Attacking these units outside their range with other high accuracy classes with magic or bows is recommended, but only if the ranged unit is also blocked by a stronger class to block the Swordmaster's advance. Therefore, exploiting their flaws is effectively easier when attacking behind walls, as their magic resistance is generally quite low, being a melee class. Also, swordmasters gain a critical boost among promotion that varies depending on the game played (e.g. 30% in Binding Blade and 15% in Rekka no Ken, Sacred Stones, and the US version of Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, where Trueblades, swordmasters promoted, have 20%). In Awakening, the critical boost does not occur, but with the Swordfaire skill the damage increase will make up for it.

When the class was first introduced in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War they had the highest strength (tied with the traditional high strength classes such as dragonmasters), the highest SPD cap, the highest SKL cap, and a fairly good defense cap. The swordmasters in that game also had good to excellent growth in those areas as well. After Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, the strength of the swordmaster class was considerably lowered.

In WiFi battles, Swordmasters are often used for their simplicity. Their high speed and lack of obvious weakness make them decent. Their main flaws are low movement, lack of ranged weapons and weapon triangle rigidity. Swordmasters are among the easiest units to obtain, although some care needs to be taken with their generally low defense stat.

In the GBA Fire Emblem series,the Swordmaster is the promoted version of the Myrmidon and can not be promoted any further. However, in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, a Swordmaster can further be promoted to Trueblades upon reaching level 21 or reaching level 10 or above and using a Master Crown.